“No. I’m only tired . . . and worried. It’s about Mary and those children
. . . Mary is worse . . . she can’t last much longer. And as for the
twins, I don’t know what is to become of them.”
“Hasn’t their uncle been heard from?”
“Yes, Mary had a letter from him. He’s working in a lumber camp and
‘shacking it,’ whatever that means. Anyway, he says he can’t possibly take the
children till the spring. He expects to be married then and will have a home to
take them to; but he says she must get some of the neighbors to keep them for
the winter. She says she can’t bear to ask any of them. Mary never got on any
too well with the East Grafton people and that’s a fact. And the long and short of
it is, Anne, that I’m sure Mary wants me to take those children . . . she didn’t say
so but she LOOKED it.”
“Oh!” Anne clasped her hands, all athrill with excitement. “And of course you
will, Marilla, won’t you?”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” said Marilla rather tartly. “I don’t rush into
things in your headlong way, Anne. Third cousinship is a pretty slim claim. And
it will be a fearful responsibility to have two children of six years to look after . .
. twins, at that.”
Marilla had an idea that twins were just twice as bad as single children.
“Twins are very interesting . . . at least one pair of them,” said Anne. “It’s
only when there are two or three pairs that it gets monotonous. And I think it
would be real nice for you to have something to amuse you when I’m away in
school.”
“I don’t reckon there’d be much amusement in it . . . more worry and bother
than anything else, I should say. It wouldn’t be so risky if they were even as old
as you were when I took you. I wouldn’t mind Dora so much . . . she seems good
and quiet. But that Davy is a limb.”
Anne was fond of children and her heart yearned over the Keith twins. The
remembrance of her own neglected childhood was very vivid with her still. She
knew that Marilla’s only vulnerable point was her stern devotion to what she
believed to be her duty, and Anne skillfully marshalled her arguments along this
line.
“If Davy is naughty it’s all the more reason why he should have good training,
isn’t it, Marilla? If we don’t take them we don’t know who will, nor what kind of
influences may surround them. Suppose Mrs. Keith’s next door neighbors, the
Sprotts, were to take them. Mrs. Lynde says Henry Sprott is the most profane
man that ever lived and you can’t believe a word his children say. Wouldn’t it be
dreadful to have the twins learn anything like that? Or suppose they went to the